A Brief History of Robotics

Tedmed curator Jay Walker shows Alan Murray some of the world's oldest books on inventions and explains what they can tell us about the future of robotics.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... we're gonna talk about the history of ... robotics in our bodies so what are we start ... well ... you know ... you can talk about machines Allen ... without talk about the greatest imagine year of all times ... Leonardo de Vinci ... good so ... in the Leonardo is mine we're thirteen thousand pages of manuscripts in which he imagines ... endless machines my goodness this is a perfect copy of the road a perfect ... being unoriginal of a Leonardo Kodak's ... and in this copy here ... you can see enlist drawings of machines that Leonardo has made including in this copy ... is famous machines of the human flying machine hear somebody ... pedaling away here ... the ... R and is building a helicopter so ... Leonardo is probably the most diverse Lee talented human that has ever lived east of how MF who wrote backward slack in mirror writing ... because he could ... so this is the source if you will of some of the greatest imagination in him and his outing to actually make any ... the did make some prototypes he was a military engineer ... Andy made quite a few years across protein aid though this is a flying machine here so he did build machines as well as drop so where to start with that ... and then we're going to go ... to the military machines ... in the big issues here and and this is a book from fifteen fifty three beautiful copy here ... it's filled with illustrations of the spectacular ... military machines are these men ... summaries hurling rocks down on these guys while they are raising them up ... and you can also see value and were these may derivatives amenities are real machine so this is a book of real military machines not imagine doing more when the age of real machines ... here on this table you can see ... a larger examples of some of the pages here ... including probably the first in image of a robot ... this was a machine designed for the military with spikes coming out of its head here ... from the big issues ... and so when you talk about robots ... you know you look at these are ancient Roman machines ... so we're going to go from this machine their most serious ... thing in this book of machines ... I ... which is ... up the artificial machine book here ... know ... what's gonna powered machines have taken some pages here from the room Ellie ... this is the most beautiful book of the seventeen century ... and cares was powering machines ... he gets from people walking on treadmills ... so for those of you that workout everyday ... know your falling on a very long tradition of walking on machines only in this case they're doing real work ... also the machines were dressed up ... here there's a machine with a woman ... essentially a certain type of woman here ... with water coming out of progress in this man turning the machine I'm wondering exactly what's going on in this picture ... the board to share with it ... but ... here's another set of machines from a clockwork machine that was ultimately used ... on in various German Clorox ... and gears and again you think all these actually says all these machines existed in this whole book with these are machines that actually existed here's a ... way to raise water out of the well by walking on a circle ... and here is a very famous image from the Rovelli ... this is a reading machine ... if you look here ... this man is is this is before Facebook of the four of the Internet he said all of his books on in China rotary device ... and he circular returns the machining you can see the cogs driven here and here says library right here ... and he's this is your your home reading a year I'm sorry what is the point of this to hold several books open for those of you that want to read five or six books to be multitasking is multitasking in the Renaissance ... that's in the Renaissance his multi this ... soap ... you have to sell your machines in the way you do that is to produce beautiful catalog so over across the hall at the exhibit is to regional OBISPO customer move it here ... this is the cover page of a outfit your own army book ... okay so this is the book of machines ... military machines in the front or the price lists of all the costs of the various things ... and here you can see they're making gunpowder in this image and here's more making of gunpowder ... use of gunpowder comes from China to be you know to the west ... and then of course they sell it and monotone doesn't ... end here they're making more gunpowder so this is a book filled with these are our Romick looking machines ... bombs and ... in all kinds of weaponry so when you go cross you can see your weapons catalog here ... and then ... talk about robots may know we have ... a guest from Moscow ... this is the first robot to crash into the surface of another planet in nineteen fifty nine the Soviets launched an interplanetary probes ... and they crashed this robot into the surface of the moon ... so Sputnik this nineteen fifty seven ... two years later the Russians hit the moon ... Andrew and sent back pictures and this is a technical report that looks like a soccer ball here ... but that is what explodes on the surface of the moon essentially in their measuring as much as they can here's the ... storing of exactly what's going on so this is the ... Russian technical report ... and there is your ... robotic probe ... in the middle of what looks like the upper stage of a ... rock ... write ... speak eMachines going to other planets ... I brought this is the result of the machine ... so the Mariner four procure was launched in nineteen sixty five ... and it was the first time digital pictures of another world are sent back since nineteen sixty five ... the entire pro overturned a twenty two pictures the entire mission ... which was our ten year ... six hundred and thirty kilo bytes of data that's it ... and nineteen of those twenty two pictures are on this mag take ... now nineteen and twenty beaches are six hundred and thirty still abide so for those of you to take pictures on your phone when measure those in megabytes ... this is less than one percent the cost ... fifty five million dollars to send back twenty two pictures ... and bought a rate ... was ... thirty one C thirty three bits of second ... in nineteen sixty five ... so you wanna see one of the world look like ... you ran this tape which was to let Mason ... were killing of more than one or two things were done their bit as though lamps or robotic think this is a little piece of a robot so most people don't know this but the Russians built the most amazing robot probably in history ... in nineteen seventy six wounded twenty four ... was a robotic probe the Russians couldn't Landmann um so this of robots ... they sent three robot probes that landed on the moon ... scooped up some soil with a with a big scoop and then blasted off with the soil and came back to the ER ... literally they brought back about six ounces of soil in each mission ... in fact ... if you think about it the Americans bring back all these rocks these humans the Russians say you know what we just on the robot ... and this is a little piece ... of the soil that brought back from the surface of them ... last but not least is your glove compartment manual ... for Saturn five rocket ... probably the most complex machine ever built in history ... is the Saturn five rocket ... standing about three hundred sixty feet tall ... but every vehicle has to have a glove compartment manual ... and so you're an astronaut this is your glove compartment manual for your Saturn five rocket out of the things that I had a chance ... there is what's going on with the power systems ... literally your entire DVD TV guide for your Saturn Fabros fascinating reading bass and know what we're gonna be targeted here just a moment is robotics and humanoids ... um and and one thing that's been talked about more recently is the moment which people in and human noise machines began a murder ... Doherty happen to have it seems now they can read our thoughts and move the robotic arm of those ... people and it's been demonstrated both in humans and animals we can control cursors with our thoughts ... on it's not gonna be long before humans and machines start over how far does that go ... I think it goes about as far as your imagination let it go but I don't doubt within fifty years steel ... mesh people that are ... a significant portion machine with this ... fast fast ... will there will never be a machine to replace Jay walkers IQ had been tied to the ... the the ... the the